SwarmTouch: Guiding a Swarm of Micro-Quadrotors with Impedance Control using a Wearable Tactile Interface

TL;DR

This paper introduces SwarmTouch, a novel human-swarm interaction system that uses impedance control and tactile feedback to enable intuitive and safe guiding of drone formations, enhancing user awareness and control in complex environments.

Contribution

It presents a new tactile interface combined with impedance-based swarm control, allowing natural and effective human guidance of micro-quadrotor swarms.

Findings

High recognition rates for tactile patterns.

Accurate navigation in cluttered environments.

Enhanced human-swarm communication and control.

Abstract

To achieve a smooth and safe guiding of a drone formation by a human operator, we propose a novel interaction strategy for a human-swarm communication which combines impedance control and vibrotactile feedback. The presented approach takes into account the human hand velocity and changes the formation shape and dynamics accordingly using impedance interlinks simulated between quadrotors, which helps to achieve a natural swarm behavior. Several tactile patterns representing static and dynamic parameters of the swarm are proposed. The user feels the state of the swarm at the fingertips and receives valuable information to improve the controllability of the complex formation. A user study revealed the patterns with high recognition rates. A flight experiment demonstrated the possibility to accurately navigate the formation in a cluttered environment using only tactile feedback. Subjects stated that tactile sensation allows guiding the drone formation through obstacles and makes the human-swarm communication more interactive. The proposed technology can potentially have a strong impact on the human-swarm interaction, providing a higher level of awareness during the swarm navigation.